


Teacups for Rainwater

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 02:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12049479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: She won't tell him that though, won't tell him she's not sure she should be here, won't tell him that she lied to CNN and they only found out because she had gone and gotten stabbed. Incomplete medical records may have stopped an outright ‘no’ but they couldn't stop a switchblade, couldn't stop a request sent stateside from her surgeon to her GP.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because I originally I wanted to know how the show would be different if MacKenzie had had a disability long before she wanted to be a journalist. Would the universe of the show ever have existed and if so, how different would it be?
> 
> Warnings for language (the sort of thing we see in the show), and derogatory descriptions of disability (in the section covering 1.05). There are minor mentions of medical procedures and hospitalization, particularly toward the end. This fic follows the general outline of season one so there are spoilers for some episodes.
> 
> Thanks to simplyprologue’s wonderful fic ‘[Fingerspelled](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2747651)’ for helping me get over my misgivings and actually write this. And many thanks to Heather for a second pair of eyes. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are my own.
> 
> Title and opening quote come from two parts of the poem “New York, June 2009” by Sarah Kay. 
> 
> I've split this up into two chapters to make posting easier, not for any specific structural reason.
> 
> I know that everyone's experience with disability is different. This fic isn't meant to represent disability as a whole or even a singular experience. While parts of this draws from my own experiences I've also tried to draw from experiences outside of my own as well. If anyone has concerns or questions I'm happy to address them.

_ A truck on the street rolled over a grate, and the metal clanging filled the air like a speech bubble between our faces. My fingers found my elbows, my neck bone, the hem of my pants. _

_ ~*~ _

There's still a part of her that thinks she shouldn't be here, but she's used to ignoring that particular voice, the one that's currently screaming at her that she's about to step off onto the 25th floor, the 25th floor. What if the fire alarm went off? That's 25 more flights of stairs than she can handle when she's panicking, although now she knows better, thanks to Iraq. She could make it halfway down. Someone might help her. She could get trampled to death. She's used to ignoring the voice, but this morning she lets it distract her, lets herself worry about something that isn't Will McAvoy and what could potentially be a huge mistake.

She won't tell him that though, won't tell him she's not sure she should be here, won't tell him that she lied to CNN and they only found out because she had gone and gotten stabbed. Incomplete medical records may have stopped an outright ‘no’ but they couldn't stop a switchblade, couldn't stop a request sent stateside from her surgeon to her GP.

She's used to fighting for things, had fought for everything. Had to prove herself time and again, but she's never had to prove herself to Will, never had to explain why a girl with a limp and a mumbled affect would grow up wanting to be a newswoman. She’d never had to explain, and now she would have to stand across from him and try to make him see that she would fight for this too, not them, she isn't sure about that, but this job. She would fight for that, for her right to be, here, in a newsroom.

“Hi Will.” She feels her whole body stiffen up, the sudden uncertainty throwing her for a loop. She hadn't prepared herself for this, for him to suddenly appear, and she's trying not to think about having to turn around and walk to his office. She's trying to think of what to say, but the words have gone, even the nagging voice in her head has gone, and she's standing there staring at him, hoping she can manage to say something before he's gone again.

“It's nice to see you.” She says knowing somewhere behind her Jim is watching, waiting for her to turn, to give him permission to discretely nudge her through that first awkwardly stilted step, but Will has seen it before, had been the one with his hand on her elbow. She's trying not to think of that either, because she needs to keep talking, because she needs to be here, needs him to be here, but in the end all that comes out is, “sure.” 

It's not enough but she takes a breath, focuses, uncurls her toes, takes a step, shuffles forward. She tries to go back to rehearsing her argument as he passes by, runs through the plan she had last night, tries to remember what she had found in the desperate spinning she had been sorting through while she waited next to Maggie.

“You can't do this to them.” She's clinging to that because it's a more solid argument, one she might be able to win, one that keeps her from thinking too much about herself, about the way her hip is already aching from the heels she had insisted on wearing. She had needed to make a good impression, had needed to look as normal, as put together as possible.

It was an old habit. Charlie already knew her medical history, already didn't care, and she didn't need to show up in heels to impress Will. If anything it just shows how desperate she is. She needs this job, needs it, wants it for so many reasons, but she can't do this standing up, not the entire time. She can give as good as she gets, but the heels are a distraction.

She should sit, but she paces across his office instead because it seems to be helping, because she thinks better when she's moving. Staying still leads to erratic hand gestures, noises of exasperation. She doesn’t need to look any more desperate than she already does.

He seems less hostile now and she wonders if she's beginning to win him over or if he's noticed the stiffness in her gait, the look of relief she can't quite hide when she finally sinks down into a chair, the aching stretch in her back releasing the tension that's been building there. She wonders what he’s seeing, who he’s seeing as they argue. She wonders if he's hearing a word she's saying.

She's back on her feet again, leaving, because she knows she won't win this if she pushes too far. This isn't the Will she knows, the one who loves banter, who's happy to argue for hours. This Will is sharper, angrier, more hostile. She's leaving and then she isn't because she can't go and leave him like this, a pathetic excuse for the man she loved, loves.

She's all snark and sarcasm. It's her last resort. It's not so much a weapon as a defense mechanism because god dammit she needs this and she knows Charlie had to have told him at least that much. This may not be the Will she knows, but she knows that somewhere buried deep he still feels an element of empathy if not compassion. He may not want her, but he wants this, she knows that, knows she can sell him on it too.

“You and I have a chance to be among the few people who can frame that debate.” She finishes, rests her hand on the back of a chair so she can take some of her weight off her feet. She waits while he thinks, knowing she isn't gaining any ground but knowing all the same that maybe, maybe, she wasn't ceding ground either.

She’s run out of rope. Her counter argument has played itself out and neither of them are saying anything. He isn't saying anything, but then Jim is there and they're all talking. Will isn't impressed, but she hadn't expected him to be. Jim is more cautious, more sedate in his stubbornness than either she or Will. He's young and careful, but relentless. He irritates Will she could see that, anyone who lived up to her journalistic standards irritated Will right now. It isn't much, a hope and a prayer, but she clings to it, letting the whirlwind sweep her up, trying not to wonder, for the upteenth time, how either of them manage to look at themselves in the mirror every morning.

It’s all happening so fast. She's back on the other side of his office door, in the newsroom, but suddenly there's a broadcast looming before her. It makes her heady, the rush of adrenaline that comes with breaking news. There had been a time when she had felt immune to its pull, the rush of being alive, of staying alive having overtaken everything else, but now it hits her full force.

-

“Will.” He doesn't want anything to do with her, but she sees him miss a step when he hears her heels hit the tiled floor behind him.

“Eight to nine is over.” He reminds her, but he's slowed down enough that if she pushes she might be able to catch him before he disappears into an elevator. 

It's an odd sort of kindness. He's still angry with her, might always be angry with her, but he wouldn't, couldn't, be cruel. He knew she wouldn't stop because he refused to, knew she would end up standing in front of elevator doors aching because she'd had to try. She always had to try and so he slows down, not enough so that she can keep up, but enough that she can catch up in the end.

She reaches the bank of elevators and hesitates for a second, watching him jam the button for the elevator. For a moment tonight she had seen the old Will. For a moment she had felt a glimmer of hope so she plows ahead because she's always been honest with him even when she shouldn't have been, even when I love you shouldn't have come on the heels of a night with Brian.

She wants to tell him that he's ok, that he'll be ok, that he's good and kind and not any of the things he must still think of herself, because he may have told her to go, but she had been the one to run, and you don't run that far, that fast without a reason. She wonders if he would believe her if she told him he wasn't the reason. He had never been the reason she had done something she shouldn't.

She wants so badly to tell him but the closest she can come is reminding him of that night at dinner, how perfect it had all been. How perfect he had been. How happy they had been. She had never been so happy. She would never be so happy. He could be. She wanted to remind him of that. He had been happy. He could be happy, even if he still hated her.

\---

Spring slips into summer and she starts to feel like maybe she can stop looking over her shoulder. It's been weeks since he's pushed back against her about a broadcast, longer since he'd had anything to say about her personally. And while the latter might have more to do with the women he's been parading through the newsroom, she prefers the sharp ache of their presence to the echo of whatever he says rattling around in her head.

She had tried once to explain this to Sloan, but had stopped almost before she had started because she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be explaining, the fact that he deserved better or that she didn't.

She had tried to explain and when that hadn't worked she started making other excuses, which wasn't hard to do when the only thing she wants most nights is head straight home and collapse face first onto her mattress. It's amazing to be back in a newsroom, exhilarating, but by the end of the broadcast, coming down off the temporary high, she's too exhausted to do anything but make sure she gets a full eight hours. 

She does go out occasionally, on nights she knows she won't be able to sleep, on nights when she needs the noise at Hang Chews to block out all the noise in her head. Some nights she even caves to Sloan’s encouragement and spends the night out, not because she needs to, but because she can. 

For the most part though she and Sloan stick to the weekends, to the poetry readings and informational lectures Sloan finds for them to attend. Occasionally they crowd in a smattering of film screenings or the shopping trips that crop up when one of them needs a new blouse, a skirt, or when Sloan, never Mac, needs a new pair of shoes. Sloan has tried of course, to entice her as they made their way through store after store, but Mac doesn't take anyone shoe shopping. It's hard enough finding comfortable functional flats without having to explain why most of the time she ends up with the ugliest shoes on the rack.

Mac doesn’t take anyone shoe shopping so she suggests lunch instead, agrees to lunch instead, but she hesitates over dinner invitations, party invites with a plus one attached. Sloan generally doesn’t push, doesn’t ask for much until July, until Mac calls her bluff and finds out Sloan really had been serious about wearing combat boots with evening attire. 

They had laughed to themselves, awkward in the elevator, tumbling out to be greeted by a sea of introductions to a lawyer, a doctor, a tech analyst, to Wade whose introduction she missed, but whose laugh caught her ear and left her head buzzing pleasantly.

She finds out later that he's an orthopedic surgeon and reconsiders, but Sloan is persistent, supportive, suggesting coffee, suggesting they talk, just talk, and see where it goes. And so she accepts his offer for coffee on a Sunday afternoon.

She doesn't mind that he doesn't talk much about his work, doesn’t mind that he seems almost to prefer not to mentioning it. He's interested in her work, interested in her and while he does eventually ask about ‘her condition’ he doesn't press her for more and she doesn't offer much figuring he knows enough of skin and bone to fill in the blanks.

-

“She's so British. We're a little more than friends.”

Shit, she wants to say, wants to hear the word scratch up the back of her throat, but Wade is there, and that isn't something she can say.

“She's not British.” He says. He says it casually like it doesn't mean anything, like it doesn't mean anything to her, but it does, because he knows, Will knows. She hadn't told Wade. Might not ever tell him, definitely would never explain. 

She has a British passport, that’s true. She had spent the years after her diagnosis in London, had stayed there through most of primary school. She had stayed until having the family split up, the back and forth, was too much for her mother, until they found a school in New York that would provide the therapy she needed, keep her mainstreamed. The NHS was wonderful, an excuse for an application to Cambridge, the final push she had needed to accept their offer, but she had never felt English, had worked hard to be seen as American. Had wanted nothing more even though now she lets the comments slide because while her diction was better- she had worked hard, so hard for years- she had never been able to lose the accent, would never lose the accent. “She's American.”

She's trying to ignore them, ignore them both along with the rising ache in her chest that she’s wishing was only panic, wishing it wasn't something more, because she hadn't told Wade that either, hadn't explained. She could never explain because like so many other things he would never understand. He would never be Will and now she thinks she might lose them both because of it.

\---

She's never understood print media the way she understood broadcast journalism but she could learn, she could try. She had grown up with the BBC, with PBS, watched endless hours of coverage from hospital beds, from the corner of the living room while her siblings played. Some kids grew up with books, for her it had been the news, on TV and in print. She wasn't a bad writer. She had options, maybe not with major networks after CNN, but there were other places she could query. She had options she thought, if he didn't want her here, if she needed to leave.

“I can leave.” She doesn't want to yell, doesn't want to leave, but she is and she might.

She desperately wants to stay, knows she should just stop talking, but she's so furious with him, still smarting from the embarrassment of stumbling out of his office, feeling his hand gentle and firm on her elbow as she had found her footing. “You can do the same show with another producer.”

“I can?” He says and it's not until later that she realizes it had been a question.

“If the only reason you've kept me here is out of pity,” she spits at him, hoping that that's better than the alternative, praying she hadn't deluded herself into thinking that he wasn't keeping her close to punish her, because Jesus Christ he hated her. “I can leave. God knows I certainly don't need the job.”

“Mac,” he's finally getting angry. She can see she's pushing buttons, pressing at sore spots she hasn't quite been able to forget about. “I don't hate you.”

She doesn't believe him. It's hard to believe him when he's so angry, when she can see him clenching his jaw. She's throwing stones, she could excuse him, but he's lobbing grenades.

“It's not, I'm not.” He glares at her. “What the fuck, Mac, pity? Do you really think? Do you think I-?”

“I can leave.” She throws back at him again. 

“We can have that discussion.”

“Why don't we have it now? Why don't we-?” She knows they're all listening even if Jim's the only one likely to be watching outright, but she wants this off her chest, wants to know once and for all how wrong she had been. Charlie didn't care, hadn't cared when he had found her at the bar across the street from her physio’s office on one of the few days that month she didn't have an appointment somewhere. Charlie didn't care, but Will she thinks, Will might, and maybe that's the problem.

“Yeah?”

She wants to know, but the moment passes too quickly, Jim appearing and then Maggie and whatever she had been about to say is lost to the ether.

\---

It's four days after the story about Wade had broke, four days of unanswered calls and emails- she can't imagine why he wants to talk to her, he must have seen it- but that isn't why Gary keeps popping up when he thinks she's not around. That isn't the story Gary’d been mentioning before Will had slammed his hand down on his mic pack cutting off the sound.

She doesn't ask him about the story right away although she does throw in a quip about Nina because she can, because she wants to see him smile, because she can't apologize for Wade the way she wants to.

“You did this?” He asks and for a minute she doesn't respond. She wants to shrug, because that's what he would do, but she wants to smile too, wants to grin because she can see he's getting emotional, can feel it bubbling in the air between him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” She offers softly with a hint of a smile, just the edge of one, until he hugs her and all she can do is breathe, breathe in the warm familiar scent of him and press her face into his shoulder, his arms tight against her back.

They move back to his office, sitting side by side in chairs on the wrong side of his desk until the line disappears and he gets up just long enough to close the door.

“You forgot to tell CNN?” He asks her quietly, gentle in his choice of words, his hand still on her arm. 

She flinches, tries not to overreact, knowing that she can't hide from him, not in close quarters. She wonders if that had been intentional. She wonders if he can hear ‘she’s annoyingly ethical’ ringing in his ears the same way she could in hers. It's been four days since the last tabloid story but it still stings like it had that night.

“It doesn't matter.” She says when she means to say it didn't, because it does now. It matters if he's asking now, why he's asking now. “I did my damn job.”

“Yes, you did.” He says and she wonders if she's imagining the pride in his voice, wonders if he had been watching her while she had been watching him.

“I couldn't have told them and-” she pauses, not wanting to state the obvious, that they wouldn't have let her go, that she would have been seen as a liability. She had needed to go, wanted to go, and she had made it happen. “I wanted to go.”

“Yeah.” He says and she wonders if he understands or if it feels too cruel now, after the hug and everything else, to tell her to go. He should tell her to go.

If he knows, if he isn’t guessing, then she knows why, and it won't end well. “I'll go.”

He lays a hand back on her arm, although she hadn't meant go now, hadn't intended to leave him just yet. She needed just one more moment, one last smile, before she could stop herself from turning around as she walked out the door.

“Mac,” he pauses, offers her that smile, trying to be reassuring, or possibly brave she thinks until he continues. “It's not going to print. It won't see the light of day.”

She wants to argue with him but he looks so sure. He looks so sure and she wants to believe him even if there's a part of her that's furious. 

“If you,” she starts again without any of the bravado she’d had earlier. “paid a gossip columnist-”

“I tore up the check.” His hand slides up her arm as he shrugs. “Restaurants are bad investments.”

She looks over at him frowning, but he doesn't elaborate. She wants to hang on to the anger, muster it into a defense against whatever is coming, but she can't.

“Nondisclosure?” It's a curveball out of left field but she should have seen it coming. Covering his ass or protecting her it didn't matter, he would want to know. He might already know.

She looks away, tries to force herself to nod so he wouldn't have to ask again, so she wouldn't have to say anything, but he squeezes her arm and breathes deep, exhaling silently. He's willing to wait.

“I-” She breathes out after an audible swallow. She's trying not to cry but as hard and as fast as she blinks she can't stop feeling the icy blast that had hit her on the balcony, the sharp knife of Wade's words. Inspiration porn, two words he hadn't said but the only words she needed to sum up the last six and a half months.

“I-” She tries again, forcing out a sharp exhale to keep her voice steady. “It was mutually- as far as they're concerned it's a null issue. I resigned, no severance package. I never-”

“Alright.” He says, then repeats himself more sternly so she stops talking, forgets for a second to keep blinking, and first one tear and then another slips out. She lets them fall knowing he'll notice if she brushes them away, knowing he's watching her intently because he still hasn't taken his hand off her arm, hasn't told her to go.

“It's over before it started.” He means it to sound reassuring, it probably does, but she feels her shoulders twitch. He hadn't meant Wade, hadn't meant them, or even this job but it's late and she's exhausted and aching. She'd spent ten minutes in her office shivering after she had gone to see Wade and her muscles still burned with the memory, the aching cramp of the cold that had settled in her bones.

She wants to be home in bed. She wants to be wrapped in his arms. She wants desperately not to cry, but he's deemed her too far gone. Already he's up, crossing the room to his bathroom, yanking free a wad of toilet paper before returning to his seat.

“Mac,” he turns his chair toward her, studiously folds the toilet paper into a long accordion while she attempts to compose herself. She sniffs and he lays the folded stack in her lap, pulls one of her hands free from the arm rest she's gripping to hold between his own.

“No one in their right mind-”

“I heard you.” She cuts him off not wanting to tarnish the one saving grace from their conversation on Friday. “It's not-” It's not Wade she wants to say but she can't make the lie come out of her mouth. 

“He stopped by tonight.” She says instead, wiping away an errant tear before looking up at him.

“I thought that might be why Jim was hovering.” He offers her a smile, gently turning the wad of toilet paper in her lap.

“I made him look good. The gimpy charity case who talks pretty and knows how to smile for the cameras.”

She knows Will is furious, can sense the subtle shift in the set of his shoulders, feel the static charge of anger in the air, but he speaks calmly almost with a self-deprecating air. “And here I was thinking the guy couldn't possibly give me another reason to put my fist through his face.”

“You can't.” She cautions immediately knowing he'll misinterpret the note of confusion in her voice for panic.

“I wouldn't, Mac.” He squeezes her hand, trying to reassure her, distract her from the bubbling hysteria. “but I would like to.”

This was getting to be too much, the ups and downs of the day, his sudden rally to her side. She wants him to stop and let her go, but he's never been good at that, still wasn't, she had learned,  and so he kept trying.

“What was it you wanted to ask me, the day- before the Giffords shooting broke. It seemed like you really wanted to know.”

She had been so angry with him then, so desperate to clear the air, to move on in one way or another, but now that's the last thing she wants.

“I was scared.” She offers because it seems close enough to the truth, even though it’s nothing like the truth. “I wasn't sorry enough.”

She doesn't see the soft look of pain on his face because she isn't looking at him but she knows it's there, the look she had spent a long time thinking was pity until she had seen it for what it was, pained understanding.

“It was never- Mac,” He wants her to look at him she knows that, but she can't. It's all too close to what she’d had before, too close to the thing she was still trying not to want.

“I didn't want to see- I couldn't stand to think of you like,” he sighs, squeezes her hand again. “It was stuck in my head, and when you left.” She feels the whisper of a breeze he creates as his free hand moves through the air. “I wish you hadn't left.”


	2. Chapter 2

She had been expecting Jim. She hadn't said anything to him, hadn't gotten up from her desk since she has come in, but he would have noticed by now. It's one of the reasons he had insisted on the desk he had. He wasn't right outside her office, but he did have a direct line of sight to her desk, which she knew was the point. He insisted on keeping an eye on her, showing up with heat wraps and painkillers when she was too stubborn or too distracted to notice that she needed them.

She had already popped a couple of ibuprofen from the half empty bottle ratting around in the back of her drawer, a move she knew Jim couldn't have failed to notice, so when her door swings open she doesn't look up until Will speaks.

“Do you ever take a day off?” His voice is teasing as he stands leaning into the door with his shoulder.

She jumps, feels her knee connect with the underside of her desk and hisses with a wince, one hand immediately pressed into her lower back.

“I'm sorry.” There's an edge of surprise under the obvious concern in Will's voice. “I didn't mean to startle-”

He stops as the door to her office swings open again and Jim appears, eyes widening as he spots Will. “I wasn't expecting you- I thought,”

“Neither was Mac,” Will offers her a smile as he turns to her. “I wasn't planning on staying. I needed a couple of things. I saw your light was on.”

“Oh,” Jim fumbles, giving her an apologetic look before handing her the heat pack. It's an awkward handoff, he had walked in brandishing it and now seemed to want to hide it as he slips it into her hands.

“Physio?” Will asks as Jim disappears and she wonders if he'd noticed before or if this was just a lucky guess. It had been weeks since she had needed to make an appointment- appointments were easier to keep than any self-enforced regiment- but with the cold weather hanging on, causing the cramping in her back and the aching in hips, her twice weekly restorative yoga classes weren't doing the heavy lifting the previous six months of physio had.

“Yeah.” She resists the urge to shrug, tries not to shift more than she has to, because while she knows it doesn't show on her face, she knows Will's noticed and she doesn't want to force him to saying anything. She's never liked talking about this part of her life, even with him it had never been easy, but if he says something she'll have to respond.

“Here.” He steps forward, around her desk, and lays his hand over hers, slips it down to tug at the heat pack. “Let me.”

“I can,” she tries to tell him, but she knows that she'll never be able to slide it into the right spot, never get it to stay in place long enough to lean back. Normally Jim would place it for her, but he had slipped out as quickly as he could, not wanting her to have to explain why he was there, why he kept the heat packs in his desk and not in hers, why he would show up in half an hour with a bottle of water and a muscle relaxer unless she told him otherwise.

“I know you can.” Will's hand hasn't moved and from the look on his face, her argument hadn't shifted his position either.

“Will,” she tried more softly, protesting as he steps closer. She wants to tell him to go, but not too far. Would he stay if she rebuffed him? Did she really want to? Already she can feel herself shifting forward as he sets a hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to relax before gently pressing it against the back of her head.

“I can-” she whispers but it's less a protest than she needs, more than she wants. The ache in her back flares as she moves but it feels good to lean against him as he runs a hand down her back.

He doesn't ask her where it hurts, doesn't have to ask. It's obvious enough when she shies away, holds her breath until she feels the warm heat of the pack slip from her hands and come to rest against her back.

Slowly she sits up, careful to keep her eyes pressed shut to hide the prickle of tears that tickle the back of her throat. It isn't the pain, she thinks but the shock of the heat, his hands, the warmth on her back, that make her tip her head back and blink up at the ceiling as, she thinks, he must smile with the small puff of an exhale as he straightens.

“It's always worse right after. It gets better.” He reminds her quietly, trying she thinks, to find the words he needs to apologize for intruding. There had been more moments like these lately, gentle moments where he seemed to remember the small kindnesses that had passed between them.

They hurt, these reminders of the things she had lost, but she craves them, clings to them, not so much out of hope- she isn't sure what any of this means- but because she needs them and he seems to know that, doesn't seem to mind offering, even when he knows she'll protest.

He never pushes, but he doesn't shy away either. He shows up in the quiet moments, letting this part of himself take shape around her in the same way his fuzzy silhouette had appeared in the early morning hours as she blinked awake to find him still asleep beside her.

She had loved those early mornings in the days before Brian, in the days before she would wake still stung hot with guilt. She had loved them in the same way she loved these moments now, rare, fleeting, heart-wrenching.

\----

She's not surprised he had found out about the panel she had passed up in February. He had said he wasn't sleeping and she knew it was likely he had been spending the extra time online. It wouldn't have been hard to figure out once he had seen the title of the panel, seen the producer from CNN that had taken her place. She wasn't surprised that he had figured it out. She was, however, surprised when his only response was to email her half a dozen photos of the main theatre at the Paley Center, the steps between the stage and exit door hidden behind a ramp.

She considers not responding, it's late and she would normally be asleep but her foot keeps cramping up, twitching, and she's worried about Sloan, although Sloan and everyone else was insisting she was fine now that she was back on the air.

She's awake and he's asleep. She knows because he had waved the pharmacy bag at her, jiggled the pills, told her he had a date with his pillow and had left for the night while she had stayed behind to call a reluctant guest for tomorrow night's show to reassure them that Will wasn't planning a repeat of the Wall interview.

She's awake and so she emails him back, figuring by the time he wakes up, late and a little groggy, he'll have thought better of his original email and won't bother to respond.

Very clever. She types frowning at her screen wondering if he'll think she's angry or just sarcastic. I had no idea Paley invented ramps. I should stop by the museum at the Center and check out the new exhibit.

She checks a couple of other emails, shoots off a few rapid fire texts to Jim asking him for updates on the Euro Zone in the morning and is about to head back to bed when she hears her inbox chime first on her laptop and then on her phone.

He had emailed her personal account, she hadn't caught it before, she used the same client for both addresses on her phone, but her work email wasn't set to alert on her laptop. If they had both chimed- she knew he still had her email, had told her as much when he'd acknowledged he had gotten her emails, all her emails, but it still surprised her- he hadn't used her work email.

We used to talk about this. That was it. That was all he had said, six words. She reads them again, making sure she hadn't missed any.

We used to talk, this. Talk, we used to, this. Talk about this. She pulls the apart and puts them back together again. On the surface she knew what he was implying, she was letting her fear, that voice, get in her way, trip her up. She was letting it ensnare her, letting herself flail around until she was tangled in it.

She could have asked. She should have, would have asked about the steps but she hadn't. She hadn't said a word even while carefully recommending an old colleague, a woman who, as luck would have it, had regularly covered economic news before her promotion to EP. She had let one excuse the other and she should have been furious with herself for it. She wasn't. She had hardly given it a second thought, and somehow she thinks he knows that.

She wonders what he thinks she's supposed to do about it now, if he meant anything by it or if he just wanted her to know that he knew. She thought perhaps he was offering to talk about it now, but they did talk, not about this exactly, but she answered him when he asked how she was doing, how things were going and occasionally she volunteered the information even if it still felt strange to have someone who cared who wasn't Jim, who didn't hover, who seemed less inclined to read her mind, or she thought, more inclined to let her make the decision around when that was permissible.

I'm sorry, she types back and hits send before she can change her mind. He won't respond to that. He never responded to those sort of platitudes whether or not she meant them, whether or not she meant anything by them. That wasn't to say it wouldn't come up again, if she knew Will, and she knew she did, he would bring it up again, but it would keep him from asking more questions now, from asking her to explain, because while she thinks she can, that's not something she wants to do right now. There’s too much disappointment, too much at risk.

\---

The party had been her idea, but Will had been the one to suggest they use his apartment. She knew he had offered as a kindness to her, letting her micromanage things from his couch instead of running around the office, but she still finds herself trying to offer him an out, even after the catering, the open bar had been arranged.

“MacKenzie,” he looks over at where she's protesting on the couch, feet propped on the side table they still should move.

“Give it a rest?” She suggests with a smile and he shrugs.

“The party starts in less than two hours. We're past the point of no return.”

She considers lobbing a counter argument at him, not out of any sort of seriousness, but for the exaggerated exasperation she knows is on the other side. He's right though, they've finished the preparations, stocked the bathroom and the liquor cabinet, all that was left was for her to dig her bag out of his hall closet and get changed.

Sloan had taken her shopping, had insisted on something with a skirt because Mac never wore short skirts. They were too complicated, requiring stockings and shoes, required finding something that wouldn't trip her up or stop her from walking in the first place. She never wore short skirts but Sloan had found her something, finally, mercifully, and Mac had agreed out of sheer relief.

It had been lucky she’d had shoes and stockings to match, lucky that she had let Sloan raid her closet, dig around until she had found the tights that were just sheer enough, just warm enough for the weather they were having.

She puts them on sitting at Will's table, sliding them over her toes, twisting them around until they sit correctly. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, the scars and imperfections; she doesn't mind sharing this with him, even if he is too polite to do more than glance over, grin knowingly at the sight of the skirt.

“It's been a long time.” He smiles and she grumbles, not really meaning it.

“I hate this.”

“Got a few new dings?” He asks and she shrugs. Jim was the one with the crater in his ass, but she’d had her fair share of close calls, the jagged pink line cutting across the faded childhood scars on her calf a sharp reminder of one particularly long night, the dull pulling sensation in her abdomen a reminder of another.

“The shoes aren't new are they?” He's stepped closer, stepped toward her elbow so he can get a better look at the pair of short tan boots she had tucked under the table.

She nudges one out with her foot before leaning down to pick it up. “I've worn these a couple of times.”

“With those pants.” He grins at her again and he doesn't have to say which pair because she knows he's thinking of the slender black pair, the sliver of skin above her ankle she had fretted over showing.

“Yeah.” She shoves first one foot into a shoe and then the other, stands to tug her skirt into place, the soft caramel suede kissing the tops of her kneecaps as it flares along the hem.

“Did you pack a sweater?”

“Did I-?” She sighs, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in exaggerated irritation. “It's May, Will.”

“It's sixty degrees.”

“Outside.” She reminds him with a pout that can't quite hide her smile. She knows he's teasing. The blouse she's wearing sits wide across her shoulders, scoops low in the back. She's showing a lot of skin, much more than he had seen at the New Years party, much more than anyone at the office has seen, but she doesn't mind knowing that they'll be looking, that someone will spot the moment when Will, seemingly absently, leans past her with his hand low on her back or tucked around the curve of her waist.

It hasn't happened yet, these familiar touches passing between them. She hadn't been sure she wanted to provoke them, but Sloan had been right, the outfit suited her, made her smile secretly to herself when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. It was good to feel that lightness again, to know, maybe, it didn't have to leave.

\---

They had rescheduled the meeting with Reese so she wouldn't have to miss her appointment, but that had meant she had shown up a little harried and a lot sore, still pissed that Will had some reporter she had never heard of poking around her newsroom. By the time they reach Charlie’s office, by the time she's made herself take a deep breath and walk through the door she's furious.

She isn't being fair to Charlie when he asks her to sit, but she's sick of people telling her what she should do, how she should feel. It's been a hell of a day and she’s sick of it. She was capable of standing and she would sit when she damn well pleased which is exactly what she had told Will that morning when he had quietly told her to sit after she had slammed a stack of law journals onto his desk in frustration over the New York Magazine piece.

“Please sit.”

She glares at him then at Will, who she would rather not look at right now because he doesn't seem to care about any of this, hadn't cared to hear a word she had said this morning either.

The debate, that's what she keeps hearing. That's all Will has wanted to talk about. It's important. She knows that, but she's so sick of how easily it becomes an excuse for everything else.

The debate, Will reminds her impassively and she thinks she might just scream, until Charlie cuts in, “Then go with your principles, Mac, but know a ratings hit like this is all Leona needs to fire Will without having to explain why.”

Leona. It's a ton of bricks plowed through her chest. She digs her nails into the bottom of her chair to keep herself seated. “All right.”

She apologizes to Will when she shouldn't. It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. Her outburst this morning hadn't been that different, but she apologies anyway, hoping maybe they could both forget about Leona if she kept talking.

“How'd it go?” He asks and she turns her head enough to look at him but not enough that he's forced to confront the full force of her glare. He knew she would have to answer if she wanted to keep talking. He wouldn't pry, but she was going to have to say something, he wasn't going to let her change the topic.

“It was fine.”

“The timing could have been better.”

She hates the note of understanding in his voice. Hates it enough that she can't resist needling him. “I couldn't reschedule. It would have taken months to get another-”

“I meant this week.” He interrupts like she doesn't already know. “The story, the broadcast, the debate next week.”

“Casey Anthony.” She corrects wanting to remind him what he had agreed to, what he was doing, what he no longer seemed to have a problem with.

“Casey Anthony.” He echoes back. “This wasn't a great time to have to spend an afternoon being give the second degree.”

“Oh no,” she shakes her head, smiles dryly, “I still have that to look forward to on Tuesday, assuming no one scares off your little friend.”

He sighs, frustrated, she thinks, with the way she's insisting on acting, but willing to take it without comment. “No bad news then?”

“No news.” She jabs at the elevator button again. “There’s never any news.”

He makes a sympathetic noise, one that’s meant to imply he knows what she means. No news meant nothing had changed. No news was a mixed bag, nothing had gotten worse, but nothing had improved either. She wonders where his sympathy had been five minutes ago when she had wanted it.

“It's a couple of weeks.” He tries to circle back around, but she doesn't want his platitudes and he knows it. “We'll get the debate and-”

“You'll stop selling out?” It's a cruel thing to say to him, but she's still mad, irritated that he isn't willing to stand by her.

“Yeah,” He says as the elevator chimes, the door opens. “I'll buy you lunch and you can tell me ‘I told you so’ when I tell you I feel like I've just climbed out of a gutter.”

“Sewer.” She corrects him quietly stepping in line behind him. “We're mired in the muck already.”

\---

She insists on staying long after Lonny leaves, long after Charlie heads home to get some sleep. She sits in the waiting room and later his room, flipping through the magazines she had picked up at the gift store, too distracted to wish she had her laptop.

She keeps Jim updated, looks forward to his texts every couple of hours because he's the only one who won't tell her to go home. He sends her the weather report shortly after Will wakes up for the first time. It's a brief fluttering of his eyelashes, a ghost of a smile when he sees her sitting beside his bed, but she's never been happier for clear skies, the question mark Jim uses to reply to her smattering of exclamation points.

He wakes more fully once the sun has peeked through his window to blind her. She’s moved so that she isn't silhouetted by it, so he can see her squinting when he rolls his head to the side trying to place where he is.

“It's all right.” She smiles, smooths a hand over his hair that's mussed beyond all hope. “You're all right. The nurse said the doctor will be in in a minute to explain. I don't really- I don't remember most of the technical, water?”

She watches him try and swallow, scrape his tongue around the inside of his mouth, wince at the ache in his throat.

She doesn't want to ask him to sit up yet, so she carefully, so carefully, spoons ice chips into his mouth until he brushes her hand aside.

“I was home, how?”

“You weren't returning my calls. Lonny- Manny hadn't seen you leave. He let us up. I called Charlie. Everything's taken care of. Jane is coming up from D.C. Jim is taking care of everything else.”

She'll have to explain all this to him again when the drugs wear off, but she fills him in anyway, answering the questions he manages to ask before the doctor appears and she has to step out.

She could head into the office now. It was more then likely he would fall asleep again, but she stays, slipping back into his room when the doctor leaves. She had made sure he hadn't woken up alone. She hadn't wanted him to be alone, she still doesn't want him to be alone. She knew all too well what that was like to be alone in the hospital, to wake up to the lights and the beeping. She knew what he's going through even if his only roommates were a pair of giant stuffed rabbits someone had already had delivered.

It takes the better part of the day, a couple of hours working on her laptop after Jim had dropped it off, a few phone calls with Charlie for the anger to start bubbling up.

She was furious with him. Partly inexplicably, partly because he had scared her, he had promised all those years ago that he would never- but mostly because he had done this to himself.

“Why did you do this? What is wrong with you?” She can hear him protesting, see him wince when her blow connects in a way that makes him ache, but it takes her a moment to collect herself, to calm down enough to collapse onto the edge of his bed.

“I'm sorry.” He says as she forces herself to take a couple of deep breathes. “I should have called you when- before, but I didn't want to scare you.”

“You didn't want to, you didn't want to scare me.” She bites back the hysteria that's rising again. “You-”

He's cautious, reaching over to brush his fingertips against her back, the silk of her blouse rasping as his calloused fingers slip against the material.

“It's a hatchet job.” He tells her softly, calmly. “I let it get to me.”

She wonders if he was parroting her or repeating something his psychologist had said. It sounded like Will, the old Will, not the Will she had met a year and a half ago.

“I don't want your-” she starts to say, but there's no heat behind her words and she lets him cut her off when he reaches up to tug lightly at her hair.

“You slept here didn't you?”

“How can you tell?” She'd had Jim bring her go bag, an extra change of clothes when he'd brought her laptop. She was dressed for the office. She wonders how he knows.

“You shouldn't have. You should be sleeping-”

“I've slept in far more uncomfortable places,” she reminds him, leaning a bit so his fingers can find the back of her neck.

“I know.” He reminds her, still quiet, still gentle. “But if you insist on playing nursemaid could you wait until I get home and you can take over half the bedroom?”

“That won't be until at least the end of the week.” She turns toward him, trying to dissuade him, but she can't help but smile when he shakes his head at her.

“Go to work, Mac. You can stop by later tonight with Charlie. I'm going to get some sleep. I'll call you if I get lonely.”

-

“What did the rest of the message say?” She asks him again cocking her head to the side with a sly grin.

“After the show.” He tries to dismiss her but she waits, frowns with a bit of a pout until she hears Herb’s final countdown, three, two, and steps back to stand next to the camera while he finishes the broadcast.

“You have to wait until we're clear.” He chides as she ignores him, stepping forward seconds after he finishes the signoff.

“What did the-”

“Rest of the message say?” He cuts in to finish for her as he grabs his laptop and mug before heading straight past her and down the hall.

“Will.” She calls after him sharply, expecting him to stop, but he only slows down, lets her stumble along behind him until he pauses to hold the door to his office open for her.

She glares at him for a moment, not because of his stubbornness, but because he's holding a chair out for her at the table in the corner, waiting for her now, and not when she had been forced to trail along in his wake.

“You have to change.” She offers him the excuse, but he doesn't comment, just waits until she's seated to pull out the chair next to hers.

“I didn't know the message had been erased. I thought you'd moved on.” He's clarifying but it's clear from the look on his face that he knows she's not following.

“There was a woman who looked like you sitting in the audience. At Northwestern. I thought I saw you. I thought I must have wanted you there and so you were. Jack had a field day with that one, for weeks, especially after you showed back up.”

She’d been irritated with him but now her heart is skipping in her chest, making her clumsy and she wonders fleetingly if that's what had made him forget himself, if this is what had stopped him from turning around. She fumbles with her binder, fingers skidding over page edges until they find the paperclips she had left pressed tight around the relevant pages. Just in case. She spins the binder on the table.

“It was you.”

“Yep.”

He doesn't look as surprised as she had expected. He doesn't look as surprised as she expected because he's curious, a little confused. “You sat all the way in the back.”

“Yeah.”

“You-” He stares at her, keeps his eyes locked on hers with an intensity that forces her hold his gaze.

“It was a relatively last minute decision. All the assigned seating was taken.”

“The stairs.” He says because it seems to be the only thing he can spit out.

“I hung around until the place cleared out.” She shrugs, not bothering to tell him she had been glued to her chair when the panel had ended, heart racing in her chest with the possibility of it all. The adrenaline had helped with the interminable stairs, kept her focused while she had made her way back down to solid ground.

“Why the fuck,” he starts sharply, suddenly and then cut himself off with a quick shake of his head before standing.

“I bought it when you had Jim doing oppo. I knew you were going to find the deal memo. I wanted something. I thought you would lord it over me but you never said anything and I-” He sighs, tosses his briefcase back onto the floor at the corner of his desk. “I knew I couldn't return it. I saw the look on your face when you walked in, but you introduced yourself to Lonny and didn't say anything, and I couldn't.”

She knows her face is scrunched up in confusion, knows she should ask for clarification, but she's suddenly not sure where to start. She had been waiting for this, she thinks, but she isn't sure what to say.

“You asked me what the voicemail said.” He segues back to what she recognizes as a place to start. “You were spectacular that night.” He smiles, pauses after slipping the key into the lock on his top desk drawer. “You always are. I- I called to tell you, you were spectacular, but I also, I told you I never stopped. I never stopped.” He slides his hand into the drawer and pulls out a blue box. “I never stopped loving you.”

“What did you just say?” She asks, not because she doubts him, but because she really hadn't been expecting this, not now, not so suddenly.

“I should have-”

“Wait.” She watches him close the drawer, watches him drop the cover and then the bottom of the box onto his desk. Watches the black velvet box grow closer as he steps back toward her.

“I said I love you.” He tells her, quietly, as he takes a seat next to her, lays his hand over hers where it's still sitting next to ‘but it can be’. “Before that I said a bunch of other stuff but the important thing is I love you and-”

“OK.” She breathes out, a little surprised with herself, a little confused, but thankful that she's sitting because she's pretty sure her legs have turned to jelly or disappeared altogether.

“OK?” He asks and then he seems to catch on. “Will you marry me? Will you-?”

“Yes,” she huffs a little laugh, smiles, slips her hand out from under his to brush her fingers against his face. “I'll marry you.”

“Yes?” She traces the sides of his mouth with her thumbs, relishes in the tiny wrinkles his smile raises under her fingers. He's staring at her, watching her with a look that she can only describe as adoring. He’s dazed, wide-eyed in the same way she feels.

“Yes. I’m saying yes. Now shut up and kiss me before someone walks in.”

His grin widens, and she feels his hands come up to cup her jaw.

“Shut up and kiss me.” He repeats, meets her eye, and then just as she's about to reach up and yank on his collar he leans down and brushes his lips against hers, kisses her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> '[Hold You Like the Answer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035146)' is the sequel to this if you're looking for more.


End file.
